this is what he has not done. we are ready to act urgently on the national debt. say. let's look a what they do. the last time they were in charge, congressman ryan voted 4 and governor romney said he agreed with all of the things that were done last time around. last time around is what caused this national debt. how did this happen? when clinton left, we had a balanced budget in the surplus and things were looking good. [applause] what happened? what happened? they talk about this great recession that they and knowledge as it is fell from the sky. in september of 2008, all of the sudden this thing happened.

as my little granddaughter would say, who did it? casper the ghost? they put two wars on a credit card, not paying a penny. even though i introduced legislation to pay for that war. the voted for a new entitlement program without paying one penny for it. they added another trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. what was the result. ? these are the facts. the result was by the time the rain that turned back over to barack obama and me, they had doubled the national debt in 8 years. the fourth, fifth, or six days we were in office, we were sitting in the oval office at

sunset, mr. president, looking at his year's budget you are going to have a trillion dollars deficit. he said, i have not done anything yet. [laughter] he said, no mr. president, the budget they passed guarantees no matter what you do, you will have a trillion dollar debt this year in the budget. a trillion dollar deficit, to be precise. these guys talk about the national debt. what date did generated the -- what they did generate -- generated the jobs since world war ii. it gave us this great recession. what they have not told us is what they are willing to do about it. we laid out a $4 trillion debt reduction plan over next 10

years. we have already passed $1 trillion of it. these guys voted against everything. not only did they say they did not like our plan -- what is your plan? you go out there and you look at the setup. an impressive bipartisan commission. simpson-bowles. everyone of those plans, they rejected. paul ryan even voted against the simpson-bowles plan as a member of the commission. he would not vote to let it get to the united states congress. why? it's important you know why. because they will not voted for a single solitary reduction in the debt if it includes $1 in new taxes for millionaires.

not even $1. that is the fact. i do not need your boos. i need your votes and organization. [cheers and applause] i love how they believe over the national debt. -- they believe over the national debt. --they are so concerned about it. they bleed over the national debt. mitt romney, when asked if he had a plan to reduce the national debt if it included $10 in reduction of federal spending and $1 in the reduction of the debt, he said no. this is not on the level. they are not about reducing the debt or having a plan if it requires millionaires to pay a cent. what is more amazing is that they have discovered the middle class.

[laughter] there it is. and never heard those guys use the phrase middle-class more in their whole lives than they did at that convention. the talk about concern for the name of its i come from. -- of the neighborhoods i come from. people with four kids and three-bedroom houses. that is a normal neighborhood and talk about how they are concerned about education and health care and they go down the list. my dad used to have an expression. whenever we would come up to him and say, joe, i tell you what i value. he will look to my father and say, do not tell me what you value. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. show me what your -- show me

your budget, i will tell you what about you. [applause] let's take a look at how much they value the middle-class. they have already passed one in the house of representatives, the one embraced by governor romney. look at what it has done. i care about the middle class but i will cut 90 million people -- 19 million people off of medicare. a lot of people say, that is all poor folks. a million of those people are seniors. in fact majority had to sell -- the vast majority of folks had to sell everything they have and whatever savings they had to get into a nursing home. the only reason they are able to get into a nursing home is because of something called the dueled eligible. the get both medicare and medicaid. where did you expect those folks to go?

where are they going to go? ladies and gentleman, they saythey say they care about education. they knocked 200,000 kids out of early education. it took $1,000 out of co grants. -- pell grantswe went from 6 million to 9 million kids that have been knocked out. for those of you who have kids in school now,the only thing helping is between $500 tax credit they are giving you off of your bottom line. they worked that out. -- the white that out. [cheers and applause] --they wiped that out. let me tell you this, folks. you have to ask yourself the question. why are they doing it? >> because they have to.

let me tell you why they have to. there is no way to accommodate the more than $2 trillion in tax cuts for people making a minimum of $1 million a year if they do not do it. it all adds to the deficit. they have got to go out there this is all on the surface of tax cuts for the super wealthy. where i come from, we have one of the highest per-capita incomes in the nation. what i found out is wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor folks. they are just as decent and just as good. they are not asking for these tax cuts. that me give you an example. by extending the bush tax cuts for the wealthy, $500 billion goes to 120,000 families. $500 billion.

a half a trillion dollars. how can that the right? -- how can that be right? the average income of those folks is $8.4 million the year. -- per year. they do not need a tax cut. that what? -- guess what? middle-class families need a a hand up. they need a bit of help. [cheers and applause] a voted against extending the middle class tax cuts permanently. the voted against it. why? because they were holding it hostage to make sure they could continue the tax cuts i just mentioned. it almost sounds unbelievable. on top of the, how romney has another tax cut, costing the economy $1.70 trillion.

guess what, it is $250,000 a year in additional tax cuts to the same 120 families. -- 120,000 families and anyone that makes more than $1 million. ladies and gentlemen, this has a gigantic costs. there is something called the tax policy center made up of experts. this is a bipartisan group of experts. they did an analysis like they do all of the tax proposals. they point out that if romney ryan were elected, it would increase taxes by middle-class families by $2,000 a year. we have seen this before. letting banks write their own rules. massive tax cuts for the very wealthy,we know how it ended. it ended in the catastrophe of

the middle class. and the great recession of 2008. ladies and gentlemen, i am telling you today, we will not go back to that. [cheers and applause] we cannot go back to that policy. america cannot afford to go back to that policy. the present and i have a different way forward. let me tell you what our plan is. in addition,we have created over 5 million private sector jobs. 5.1 million since we got control. our plan to continue this is made up of four parts. we are going to do it by giving tax breaks to companies that

bring factories back to america, not companies that take factories out of america. [applause] we are going to continue to knock down those barriers that exist around the world saying no american goods here. we are going to level the playing field. as i go around the world, i travel -- i have travelled 600,000 miles since i have been vice president -- people are looking to buy the best products in the world. those products have "made in america" stamped on them. [applause] if we knock it down, they will buy our products. we are going to cut our oil imports in half by 2020, produce more american make

energy from oil, natural gas, clean coal, biofuel. ladies and gentlemen, a lot of people do not understand this. i love to hear them talk about their energy policy -- which is drill, baby, drill. there are more oil and gas rigs pumping today that all of the rest of the rigs in the entire rest of the world. that is a fact. that is why we are importing less than we have in decades. that is why we are in the position we are moving in. there is an exponential supply of natural gas if done right and real energy available in this country. -- and renewable energy available in this country. the voted against it.

we doubled the fuel economy standards for cars and trucks by 2025. [cheers and applause] by the way, that will save 12 billion barrels of oil over the period of time. i do not know how they do not think conservation is part of it. they do not know. third, we are going to maintain -- right now, there is a study pointing to the most productive workers in the world. they are american workers. they are three times as productive as our friends in china. ladies and gentlemen, we want to make sure we have the most productive best educated and best trained workers in the world. that is why we trained 1000 more mass and science teachers. -- that is why we insisted on 100,000 more math and science

teachers. we need that. we want to recruit these folks fifth as community colleges, we know we can create 2 million american workers and give them the skills for the high-tech manufacturing jobs of the future. there are 600,000 jobs in america in tech today. that is why we paired up with community colleges, creating thousands and thousands of decent paying jobs, but they oppose it. [applause] we are going to cut the growth of college tuition in half. in the next four years. [cheers and applause] we have already reduced the deficit. in four years, we will reduce it by another $1 trillion. ladies and gentlemen,there is an easy way to do this. we have to make some difficult

decisions. we have to ask fifth very wealthy to pay more. ladies and gentlemen, we are going to end the war in afghanistan as we did in iraq. [cheers and applause] in the process, over the next decade, save over $800 million fifth we are going to come home with that money and bring taxes down to reduce the debt and rebuild america. [cheers and applause] roads, bridges, schools. that will support millions over time. initially, tens of thousands of new, good paying, decent jobs that you can raise a family on. folks, one more thing. in this country, we only have one truly sacred obligation.

we have a lot of oigations to the elderly, to the young. we only have one truly sacred obligation. that is to equip and support those whom we sent to war and care for them when they come home from war. [cheers and applause] how many of you either have personally served, have a family member serve, or a good friend who served in either iraq or afghanistan? [cheers and applause] ladies and gentlemen, we owe you a debt that i do not think we can ever fully repay. we know an incredible debt to those goldstar families. every single day, i have my staff check and i put it in my

pocket -- i have been in and out of afghanistan and iraq 20 times. the first time was early on. i was getting in a c-17 to fly into jordan. i could hear the muffled sounds of footsteps outside. it is a basic c-17 aircraft. -- cargo aircraft. the back pulled down and i could hear a young captain say to me, permission to bring a fallen angel aboard. they brought in a flag draped casket. they strapped it to the floor. having a son who spent a year in iraq, all i could think of was the folks waiting at the other end to receive that body.

they refer to anyone who falls as angels. they call them fallen angels. we turned that aircraft into a cathedral. i ask every day, how many fallen angels. what is the exact number? not generally, not an estimate -- the exact numberfor every one of those men and women, it has transformed a family. a family we owe. as of today, 6437 fallen heroes. 49,871 invisibly wounded and tens of thousands of invisible

wounds. post-traumatic stress, to match the brain injury, thousands and -- traumatic brain injury, thousands and thousands critically wounded who will need extensive care for the rest of their lives. those of you of my generation -- i was not in vietnam -- should know the facts. 50% of the young men and women wounded in this war would have died had they received the exact same wounds in vietnam. the good news is they are alive. the good news is they are home. the good news is, with continued, extensive care, expensive extensive care, they can lead productive lives. that is our obligation to care for them, not just now.

after the parade are over, after the streets are renamed, we should keep this a priority. [applause] we must never forget their sacrifice always keep them in our care and our prayers. a lot of you who assembled here have been through a lot. he did not lose faith. -- you did what americans always do. you did not use faith. you fought back. as my dad would say, you have got to. there is no quit in america. [cheers and applause] ladies and gentlemen, that is why i know i am not the only one who was offended to your -- to hear governor romney write off nearly half of the country in his famous 47% comments.

47% of the people are dependent. if you read the book congressman ryan has written with two other members of congress, they talk about this culture of dependency without acknowledging that all those people, of those 40%, 82% of those people pay income tax. 10% are on social security and do not have to pay. another chunk of those -- over 68,000 -- are in battle and do not have to pay taxes on their pay. the country that i know is not a country not willing to take

responsibility, not a country that views itself as a victims. romney said it is not his job to worry about those people. half of america. what i hear this talk not just from runyan and brian but this new republican brianby the way, this is not your father's republican party. this is not even mitt romney's father's republican party. when they talk about cultural dependency and american decline, i can honestly say to you, i do not recognize the country they are talking about. i do not see it. the american people are so much better, so much stronger than these guys give them credit for. [applause] how can they have such a

inaccurate view of the country? ogden news for governor romney. i've gotten news for congressman ryan. america is neither independent or in decline. it has never been a good bet to bet against the american people. they have never let his country down. [applause] with your help, we will win this election. -- with your help, we will represent 100% of the people. and with your help, we will win this election and we will win florida. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. ♪ ♪ [roll with the changes - reo

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> republican vice-presidential candidate paul ryan candidates

in derry, new hampshire. a new poll all among likely voters in new hampshire found mr. obama was their choice for president, 51-44%. this is about 30 minutes. ♪ ♪ [runaway train - ac/dc]

♪ >> thank you so much for coming out, everybody. thank you so much. thank you for hosting us. thank you for sending mitt romney to the white house and barack obama back to chicago. [applause] it is so great to be back here. this is a beautiful place and a beautiful state. i brought my beautiful wife with me as well. [applause] she is here with my sister and brother-in-law. they live right over the border in boston. i do not know if that is a good or bad thing to everybody here. i'm just kidding. my sister lives in boston. she works for dunkin brands.

and that is good coffee, isn't it? this man knows how to balance a budget, cut spending, it knows fiscal responsibility. he is one of the leaders helping us to do that. that is charlie bass as well. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] friends, we have a choice to make. this is not your ordinary election. we are not just deciding who will be the next president for four years. we are deciding what kind of country we will have and what kind of people we will be for a generation. this is a high-stakes election. if we have four more years like the last four years, we continue stagnation. the choice is very clear. do we want a dynamic, growing economy that fosters

opportunity or do we want a stagnant economy that fosters dependency? that is not who we are. in the live free or die state,we want to live free and prosper. we want to believe. [applause] when president obama came into office, he inherited a tough situation. there are no two ways about it. the problem is the obama economic agenda failed, not because it was stopped. it failed because it was passed. do not forget this. he came into office with the ability to pass anything of his choosing. he did that. remember the stimulus? remember the idea that if we borrow $831 billion and spend it on pet projects and interest groups, they said unemployment

would never reach 8%. we would be growing at 4% a year right now. unemployment has been above 8% for 43 months. our economy last quarter stalled at 1.3%. what is worse for all of these promises about cutting the deficit, growing the economy, bringing people together in a bipartisan fashion -- i will not even get into the oceans and tides. [laughter] i have heard that one. all of these promises were made. the idea of hope and change. it sounded good. the ideas are the old ideas that have failed time and again. borrowing and spending and regulating and taxing and printing money, all of these

things do not lead to prosperity. these policies say take power from people, money from families and successful small businesses, send it to washington and they decide. that does not work. when you look at where we are right now, we have 23 million men and women in this country struggling for work. we have 15% of our fellow citizens living in poverty. that is the highest rate in a generation. women in poverty are at a 17- year high. the economy is barely growing. the president has no ideas on how to grow again. he is saying i want to do more of the same. i want another round of stimulus with tax increases and job creators. we need a leader. we need leadership to get the country back on track, to put

the right ideas in place. that leader is mitt romney. [applause] that man is going to get our country back on the right track. [cheers and applause] very rarely do we see a situation where the man and the moment meet so well. this is a man who has shown one thing for his accomplishments, a decisive, principled leadership. that is the kind of man we need. [applause] it is not good enough for us to complain. we are not simply saying hire us because the other guy is inadequate and failed. we want to earn this victory. we want to deserve this victory. what we need as a country is a mandate and the moral authority to get us back on the right

track and put the right ideas in place to get people out of poverty, out of living paycheck to paycheck. to get people back into jobs with higher pay so they have economic security so we can get the economy growing and restore the promise of the american dream for everybody. that means ideas. we are offering very specific, bold ideas to fix the big problems in this country. number one, we have so much energy in this country. let's get that energy in this country, create jobs. that will build prosperity. [applause] oil, gas, coal, nuclear, renewables, all of the above. the obama administration is standing in a way of what could be a promising explosion of energy. we have so much oil and gas because of new technology that

we know how to get without harming the environment. this puts people to work and creates manufacturing jobs. it lowers gas prices. it helps everybody becauseit lowers the cost to heat your home in the winter, to cool it in the summer, the electricity we pay. that means your paycheck goes farther. that means people living on fixed income have more income to live on. this is important. with an energy policy like the keystone pipeline, opening our land for development, we can stop sending our money to the middle east. it helps our economy and paychecks. [applause] another area -- we have all these people in between jobs. for every person who got a job last month, nearly four people stopped looking for a job. we are slipping behind.

what we see when we look at the faces, talk to the people, see the names, it is a person in their 30's, 40's, 50's, early 60's. i will get to the person in their 20's in a minute. [laughter] it is a person who came out of school, got a career, got a good job and then their job went away. when the factory left. now they do not have anything to replace it with. we need to help people in the middle of their careers to get the skills they need for the job they want that gives them real economic security. it gives them a good job with better take home pay to provide for their families. [applause] we need to clean up our education system. we need to make sure we do not be the bureaucracy. -- we do not feed to the bureaucracy. we need to give people the

choice to go to the best schools to get the skills they need to get their life on the right path. we have to recognize 95% of the world's people live outside this country. if we want could pay and jobs, -- could take home pay and good jobs, we need to grow and make more things in america and sell them overseas. that means we need trade that works for us. we need to open markets. we need to hold countries accountable when they try to take our jobs and property. we need trade that works for us. another thing, i have got to tell you, you cannot grow this economy if you do not realize most of our jobs in this economy come from small businesses we need to champion small businesses. [applause] we need to make sure the small businesses know that the government is not going to pull the rug out from under them. talk to a small-business person,

a manufacturer, someone holding on a hoping they do not have to lay off the next round of people. what do they see? they see regulation after regulation coming from washington. they have no idea what it will cost them. they are worried about going forward because of hidden costs. then they see our president promising the top tax rate on small businesses goes to about 40%. [boos ] that only pays for 8% of his proposed deficit spending. overseas, where i come from, that means lake superior. [laughter] we both live near canada. the canadians have this figured out. other countries have this figured out. canadians lowered taxes on businesses to 15%. president obama wants the tax rate on our successful small

businesses and job creators above 40%. when we tax our job creators at much higher tax rates than foreign competitors, we lose and they win. we do not want to tax the small businesses. our jobs come from these successful small businesses. we want them to hire more people. that is essential. none of this is going to work, no business will be confident to take the risk to hire people, give the raises and job security, if they see the government borrowing and spending like it is. we cannot keep borrowing 36 cents of every dollar the government spends. we cannot keep the federal reserve doing what it is doing.

we cannot keep looking our children in the eye knowing we're going to give them a diminished future because we are spending their money today. it is a simple idea. mitt romney and i are going to bring it to washington. we have to stop spending money we do not have. we must cut spending. we must get the balanced budget. we must get the debt under control. [applause] this not only hurts our economy with the threat of higher interest rates and much higher tax rates. ournow we're giving children and grandchildren a lower standard of living and diminished future. we have never done that in this country before. my dad said a couple of things that stuck with me. he would say to me, you are either part of the problem or

part of the solution. president obama has become part of the problem. mitt romney is the solution. [applause] the other thing he said is in this country, every generation of americans fixes their problems so they can leave the next generation better off. that is the american legacy. for the first time in the history of our country, we know if we stick with the same failed policies of the last four years, we guarantee our children get a diminished future. we cannot allow that to happen. it is our moral obligation to save the american dream for our children and grandchildren. [applause] this is why we need leadership. take a look at mitt romney's

record, history, the man he is, and then you will know this is the kind of man we need to lead us. mitt romney knows firsthand what it takes to grow the economy, to grow businesses, and create jobs. he has helped to create tens of thousands of jobs. being successful in business is a good thing. we admire that. we do not resent that. we want more of that. we want a successful business people. this is the kind of experience we need. [applause] he is a man who has a history of taking tough challenges, turning around difficult organizations and making them work. the olympics is one example. living here in the granite state,just over the border in massachusetts, that is not a

ruby red republican state. this is a republican who was governor of a democratic state. 87% of the legislators he served with were democrats. did he demonize and divide? no, he treated people with respect. he reached across the aisle without compromising principles. he balanced the budget without raising taxes. that is the kind of leadership we need. [applause] under president obama, household income, and families in america have gone down by more than $4,000 over the last four years. the middle class is shrinking and falling behind. under mitt romney when he was governor of massachusetts, household income went up by 5000 old. -- went up $5,000. look at what president obama did on the budget. nothing except pro and spend.

accept borrow and spend. as a result of his abdication of leadership and seeing the most predictable economic crisis in our history and not fixing it, our credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history. when mitt romney was governor, the credit rating on his state was upgraded. that is the kind of change we will get with the mitt romney presidency. [applause] we need to tackle our nation's challenges before they tackle us. we need to save and strengthen medicare and social security. you're putting ideas on the table of how to do that. we will not scare seniors. we will save the benefits for seniors and my generation so these promises are kept. we believe in strong national defense. we do not agree with the president's reckless defense cuts because we believe in peace through strength. [applause]

in the live free or die state, we know this to be true. we want to be in control of our own health care. to do that, we have to repeal and replace obamacare. [applause] the choice is clear. we can either stick with the failed policies of the last four years for the next four years, which gives us a stagnant economy and foster's government dependency, or we can fix these problems. we can bring the leadership we are lacking and have a dynamic, growing economy that produces opportunity, upward mobility, and self-sufficiency, and economic growth. higher take-home pay, a stronger middle-class, and getting people out of poverty and back into the middle class growing economic security. this is doable. we can do this. this election is not just about material issues.

this election is about the fiber of our society. this election is about the kind of people we will be and the kind of country we will have. this country is an idea. that is something we can never forget. it is not new hampshire to california. it is not just a nation with a flag. it is a nation founded on an idea that is precious. it can slip away from us defeat generation does not defend the idea. -- if each generation does not defend the idea. the idea is precious. the declaration of independence said it better than anybody can say it. our rights come from nature and nature's god, not from government. [applause] the minute we forget that idea, the minute we lose our country. our founders secured this. every veteran since has put on

the uniform to defend the idea that we can live in peace and freedom. we thank them for what they've done to give us this country. that is why we have to win. that is why we're going to win. [applause] winston churchill said it best. the americans can be counted upon to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all other possibilities. i think that is where we are. we are at the fork in the road. we have a choice to make. mitt romney and i are giving you the choice. it is a clear choice of two different futures. it is not too late to get it right and turn the economy around. it is not too late to secure for our children the promise of america that our parents secured for us.

we can do this. we can get this together. we can put this together. together, we can get this done. you have an enormous responsibility and the enormous opportunity. a handful of states will settle this. you understand that. you're the granite state. you have had presidential candidates in your kitchen. you are used to this. that is why you know the responsibility you have. you have the responsibility to talk to fellow citizens, to get the people who like unchanged but are demoralized, to show them we have a better path. we have better ideas. we will reapply our founding principles. [applause] we will not duck the tough issues. we're going to lead. mitt romney will not spend the next four years blaming other people. he will take responsibility. we will not try to replace our founding principles. we will reapply our founding principles.

[applause] we can do this. we need your help. we can get this done. thank you so much. appreciate it, everybody. [applause] ♪ ♪

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>> see the first of the presidential debates wednesday night live on c-span and cspan radio as c-span.org. next, your calls and comments "washington journal on." then "newsmakers." after that, the former u.s. ambassador to pakistan on relationships between the two countries. >> to is the first thing in our article is getting medicare costs under control. that is the number-one priority. that is the most untouchable thing.

that is going to cause more trouble than any other problem you've got in the united states. getting medicare costs under control is the number one thing. >> you say we should surcharge smokers and the obese for their medicare coverage. where did that idea come from? >> i am the person who put it in the memo but i did not have to fight for it. this is something i ran in "the washington post." i called the rio"peacemega- fatties" and i was taken to task for being insensitive which i probably am. everybody knows this to be true and someone has to pay for it. i'm not say to bankrupt people if they are too heavy but there should be a penalty. i am not really a democrat but i

and democratic compared to him. you have to be responsible for your personal behavior. >> quite right, and we should point out that we're not the only ones making arguments about this. there have been other bipartisan commission's, one that was headed by alice rivlin and pete dominic. with regard to medicare, we have to do something with regard to the obese and smokers. they had a more complicated proposal. of life care. these are difficult decisions. we will have to face them. >> fixing the economy, tonight at 8:00 on cspan's "q &a." >> jill stein from the green party